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By Hannah Parry
Associate News Editor
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Former President Joe Biden has shared Angela Merkel's private views of Donald Trump in his new memoir, revealing what the former German chancellor told him behind closed doors.
In excerpts shared with Newsweek from Biden's forthcoming White House memoir, Promise Me, America, the former president recalls how Merkel candidly discussed her difficult relationship with Trump during their early conversations after he entered the White House in January 2021.
The former German chancellor described Trump as "emotional," and questioned his fascination with Russian President Vladimir Putin and other authoritarian leaders, Biden writes in the memoir.
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Biden writes that Merkel was particularly frustrated by Trump's behavior during their meetings, including his refusal to shake her hand, and his apparent preference for personal impulses over established facts.
"In our conversations... Angela was candid about her frustrations with my predecessor, who refused to shake her hand, and who seemed 'emotional' in their meetings, driven by mood swings rather than facts," Biden writes.
"She also wondered why he was 'fascinated' by Vladimir Putin and other politicians 'with autocratic and dictatorial traits.' That was a mystery I could not unravel."
The revelations offer a glimpse into the private conversations Biden held with one of Europe's most influential leaders as he sought to rebuild relations with traditional American allies following four years of Trump's "America First" foreign policy.
Newsweek has reached out to Merkel and the White House for comment.
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Merkel's Difficult Relationship With Trump
Merkel's relationship with Trump was frequently strained throughout his first presidency, with disagreements extending beyond their personal interactions to NATO, trade, climate policy and Germany's energy relationship with Russia.
One of their most memorable encounters came during Merkel's first Oval Office visit in March 2017.
Photographers captured an awkward moment when the two leaders sat alongside each other and were repeatedly encouraged to shake hands. Merkel turned toward Trump and quietly asked, "Do you want to have a handshake?"
Trump did not respond, remaining seated with his hands clasped as cameras continued taking photographs.
Merkel also reflected on the encounter in her 2024 memoir, Freedom, writing that she had initially approached Trump as though he were "someone completely normal." She described their interactions as feeling like "a competition: you or me."
Their disagreements also became increasingly public.
Trump repeatedly criticized Germany for failing to meet NATO's defense-spending target of 2 percent of gross domestic product, accusing Berlin of not contributing enough to the alliance and threatening to reconsider America's commitment to NATO.
He also threatened tariffs on German automotive exports and criticized Germany's support for the Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline, arguing that Berlin was making itself too dependent on Russian energy.
Merkel, meanwhile, opposed Trump's decisions to withdraw the United States from the 2015 Paris Climate Accord and the Iran nuclear deal.
Following a contentious G7 summit in Sicily in 2017, she warned that Europe could no longer completely rely on others.
"The times in which we could completely depend on others are, to a certain extent, over," Merkel said.
Her comments reflected growing concern among European leaders about the reliability of the transatlantic relationship under Trump.
Biden's Effort to Rebuild Relations With Europe
Biden's conversations with Merkel formed part of a broader effort to restore confidence among American allies when he took office in January 2021.
In Promise Me, America, he describes how he worked to reassure European leaders that Washington would once again engage with international institutions and traditional partners.
Merkel, who had served as German chancellor since 2005, was approaching the end of her 16-year tenure. During Trump's presidency, she had increasingly become a central figure in European discussions about the future of the Western alliance.
Biden writes that restoring those relationships was a priority, particularly as tensions with Russia continued to grow.
His account of Merkel's concerns about Putin is particularly notable given the developments that followed.
Biden reveals that U.S. intelligence agencies were tracking increasingly concerning Russian military movements around Ukraine throughout 2021, months before Putin launched his full-scale invasion in February 2022.
He writes that he initially struggled to convince European allies, NATO members and Ukrainian officials that Putin was preparing to invade the entire country rather than pursue a more limited operation in the Donbas region.
The president eventually shared intelligence about Russian plans for a coup in Kyiv, including preparations for a propaganda video that he describes as an elaborate, almost "Hollywood production" designed to manufacture a pretext for an invasion.
Biden also recounts dispatching CIA Director Bill Burns to Moscow in November 2021 and personally confronting Putin in a phone call on December 7.
Inside Promise Me, America
Merkel is among several international figures who feature prominently in Biden's retrospective of his presidency.
The memoir also contains candid accounts of his dealings with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, whom Biden initially questioned whether he had the experience and resilience to withstand a full-scale military crisis.
Although Biden ultimately praised Zelensky's wartime leadership, he wrote they sometimes had a strained relationship, saying the Ukrainian leader could be "moody and stubborn" and "not as grateful as I would have expected" as he repeatedly pressed Washington for additional weapons and financial assistance.
Biden also revisits the chaotic August 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan in the book, writing that military and intelligence leaders had assured him the Afghan government and capital would remain standing for at least six months after American troops departed.
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Instead, that assessment collapsed within days as Taliban forces advanced and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani fled the country.
The former president also reflects on meeting grieving families at Dover Air Force Base following the Abbey Gate bombing, which killed 13 American service members.
He acknowledges that some relatives viewed him as responsible for their suffering and that several would never forgive him.
Promise Me, America, published by Little, Brown and Company, is scheduled for release on Tuesday, November 17.
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